Protect our land, water, habitat, wildlife and people

All About Fracking

Fracking in NC – Fracking is the same no matter what state in which it is taking place — this is a short, 6 minute video that does a nice job of describing fracking.

WHAT IS FRACKING?

“Relatively new drilling technology – high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) – now makes it possible to reach natural gas reserves that underlie much of the eastern part of Ohio.

“Hydraulic fracturing is the use of sand, water, and chemicals injected at high pressures to blast open shale rock and release the trapped gas inside. Horizontal drilling (also called “directional drilling”) is just like it sounds: after the well drill reaches a certain vertical depth in the ground, the well is then drilled horizontally.

As with any industrial activity, the development of oil and gas involves risks to air, land, water, wildlife and communities.

The oil and gas drilling industry argues that horizontal fracking is safe because it has been around for 40 years, but that is not correct.

While the use of hydraulic fracturing to drill vertical wells has been around that long, horizontal drilling combined with hydraulic fracturing is very new.”

Companies using fracking fluid have resisted disclosing the contents of fracking fluid, claiming the information is proprietary. However, samples from well sites indicate that the fluid contains: formaldehyde, acetic acids, citric acids, and boric acids, among hundreds of other contaminants.

It has recently come to light that, despite the illegality of the action, companies have been caught using diesel fuel in the fracking fluid.

Fracking removes millions of gallons of precious freshwater from the water cycle.

Each well uses between two and five million gallons of locally-sourced freshwater which will be permanently contaminated by ground contaminants and toxic chemicals contained in the fracking fluid.

About half of this water returns to the surface, where it is stored in steel containers until it can be injected deep underground in oil and gas waste wells.

No one is entirely sure what happens to the other half of the water used in the process. Our best guess is that the water remains underground, though there are indications that at least some of this toxic cocktail makes its way back into the water supply.

Fracking causes a range of environmental problems.

At least eight other states have reported surface, ground, and drinking water contamination due to fracking.

In Pennsylvania, over 1,400 environmental violations have been attributed to deep gas wells utilizing fracking practices.

Pollution from truck traffic, chemical contamination around storage tanks, and habitat fragmentation and damage from drilling to environmentally sensitive areas have are all related to fracking.

What do you do when the oil and gas industry forces its way into your community, threatening your health, your way of life, your future? Join together. Fight back. This is a great piece to read. Cut off the head of the snake. To stop the pipelines, stop the fracking!

“The oil and gas industry is seeking to expand natural gas production across the nation, as new technology makes it easier to extract gas from previously inaccessible sites. Over the last decade, the industry has drilled thousands of new wells in the Rocky Mountain region and in the South. It is expanding operations in the eastern United States as well, setting its sights most recently on a 600-mile-long rock formation called the Marcellus Shale, which stretches from West Virginia to western New York.

Nearly all natural gas extraction today involves a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which dangerous chemicals are mixed with large quantities of water and sand and injected into wells at extremely high pressure. Fracking is a suspect in polluted drinking water in Arkansas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, where residents have reported changes in water quality or quantity following fracturing operations.

NRDC opposes expanded fracking until effective safeguards are in place.”

“Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a technique used by the oil and gas industry to extract natural gas from rock thousands of feet underground. The fracking process includes pumping millions of gallons of water, sand and toxic chemicals (including carcinogens) underground.

Much of the land sitting on top of the giant underground Marcellus shale field between West Virginia and New York State that is targeted for gas drilling using hydrofracking is activefarmland. Fracking this land has the potential to disrupt farming productivity, endanger livestock health and affect produce and livestock quality. It presents a huge danger to our food supply. Read about some of the many reasons why fracking and farming are incompatible at http://www.catskillmountainkeeper.org/our-programs/fracking/whats-wrong-with-fracking-2/farming-and-fracking/

This is a great read filled with a tremendous amount of information and explanation of the harmful health consequences to Fracking.

“Hydrofracking is a controversial oil and gas extraction technique developed in the late 1940s to gain access to fossil energy deposits previously inaccessible to drilling operations. The process, “hydraulic fracturing”, literally involves the smashing of rock with millions of gallons of water–along with sand and a undisclosed assortment of chemicals in order to bring gas to the surface.

The 2005 Energy Policy Act exempted fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act–this regulatory exclusion is often referred to as the “Halliburton Loophole.”

About Preserve the NRV

Preserve the NRV is a citizen advocacy group working to stop the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline. The group will work with the citizens of the New River Valley, as well as all of the impacted regions in Virginia and West Virginia to advance a shared mission of stopping the pipeline project and, if necessary, advise on any possible construction routes and sites for the proposed pipeline that would diminish the negative consequence of the project on the environment, land, and citizens of Virginia and West Virginia.